From: "Victory is Certain"
http://www.victoryiscertain.com
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8311
All Spin All The Time
by Russ Baker
Viva Nihilism! It must be great working in the Bush White House. Zero
accountability. It's All Spin, All the Time. Nothing matters but politics,
hence no unfounded claim requires correction or apology.
Unless, of course,they are pushed to the end of the plank, as they were
recently with the tale about Niger and nuclear materials.
Take those elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction. Despite the failure of
the concentrated might of the U.S. military-intelligence complex to find
anything that might qualify in the remotest possible way, the
administration labels critics "revisionist historians" and imperturbedly
moves on. The initial assertions and touted "discoveries" usually get more
attention than does the sound of a balloon deflating. That's why polls
find a sizable chunk of the American public still under the impression
that WMD have been found.
Whatever Saddam's interest in WMD, the administration didn't know
what he had and didn't have solid evidence to make the claims it did --
much less to launch a war over them. For those amateur "revisionist
historians" out there, here is a partial, unscientific reconstruction of
the claims that fizzled.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb
making and poisons and deadly gases... [which]
could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America
without leaving any fingerprints."
- President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002.
THE FACTS:
The alleged Al Qaeda training camp, which Colin Powell described to the
United Nations in February, is later revealed to be outside Iraq's control
and patrolled by Allied warplanes. By late June, Michael Chandler, the
head of the U.N. team monitoring global efforts to counter Al Qaeda tells
Agence France Press : "We have never had information presented to us --
even though we've asked questions -- which would indicate that there is a
direct link."
THE SPIN:
State Dept. spokesman Richard Boucher responds: "Secretary Powell provided
clear and convincing evidence of the links between Iraq and Al Qaeda."
***
THE CLAIM:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa," Bush declares in the
State of the Union address.
THE FACTS:
In March, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), tells the U.N. Security Council that the documents
substantiating the claim of alleged Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Niger
were fakes (and bad ones at that) and that "these specific allegations
are unfounded." The unnamed ex-ambassador whom the CIA sent to check out
the story tells The New Republic : "They knew the Niger story was a
flat-out lie."
THE SPIN:
Pass the buck, finally 'fessing up in a White House statement delivered
on July 7 that Bush should not have used the uranium allegations in his
address.
***
THE CLAIM:
U.S. officials present evidence suggesting that Iraq tried to buy
aluminum tubes for use in centrifuges for the uranium enrichment process.
THE FACTS: IAEA's ElBaradei later reports that extensive investigation
"failed to uncover any evidence" that Iraq intended to use the tubes for
any project other than the reverse engineering of rockets.
THE SPIN: Powell releases a contradictory interpretation of the tubes,
then the matter disappears.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, the Pentagon "confirms" discovery of
a biological andchemical weapons storage site near
the town of Hindiyah, complete with suspected sarin
and tabun nerve agents.
THE FACTS:
Fourteen barrels of liquids are reassessed to be
pesticide.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, a white powder found at a site near
Najaf is described as possible chemical agents,
and presented as a likely "smoking gun."
THE FACTS:
The powder is an explosive.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Biological laboratories described by our Secretary
of State to the whole world that were not supposed
to be there, that are a direct violation of the U.N.
resolutions, have been discovered," Bush tells reporters,
on May 29, referring to trailers the administration says
are mobile labs.
THE FACTS:
For weeks, numerous independent experts express
serious doubts about the trailers' purposes; a classified
State Department intelligence memo cited by The New
York Times also cautions about premature conclusions.
THE SPIN:
"The experts have spoken and the judgment of the
experts is very clear on this matter," says Fleischer.
Colin Powell splits hairs in backing the White House:
State experts "weren't saying it was not a mobile lab,
they just were not quite up in that curve of confidence
that the rest of the intelligence community was at..."
***
THE CLAIM:
"We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted
nuclear weapons." - Vice President Cheney,
March 16, 2003 on Meet the Press .
THE FACTS:
After the fighting, an Iraqi nuclear scientist cuts a deal
for refuge with the United States. Buried in his garden
are documents and parts of a gas centrifuge, which
could be used to enrich uranium for bombmaking.
But the process of enriching uranium would require
hundreds or thousands of precisely machined centrifuges,
working together perfectly.
THE SPIN:
The administration declares this evidence that Bush and
Cheney were correct in saying that Saddam had never
given up hope [italics added] of building nuclear weapons.
>From "possession" to "hope" in one easy spin.
***
THE CLAIM:
In his State of the Union address, Bush claimed Iraq
had the capacity to produce 38,000 liters of botulinum
toxin, 25,000 liters of anthrax and 500 tons of sarin,
mustard gas and VX nerve agent. He said Iraq also
had 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical
weapons, plus several mobile biological weapons
laboratories and an active nuclear weapons development
program.
THE FACTS:
Despite coalition troops combing the country, and vast
reward monies offered, none of this arsenal has been
uncovered.
THE SPIN:
The administration "remains confident" that something
substantial will be found.
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New York-based Russ Baker is an award-winning
journalist who covers politics and media.